Modern computing technology allows for various types of content to be encoded onto computer readable media. The ability to copy and manipulate the encoded content poses a difficulty for content providers who wish to limit access to that content and protect their intellectual property rights.
There have been various methods to copy-protect computer readable media. Many of these methods require that play back software follow certain rules. For example, a device may be labeled as copy-protected, which signals to any software that is reading data from the device that the data should not be copied to a hard-drive or another device. This method, however, relies on cooperation from the software. Thus, the content provider must ensure that all software “obeys” copy protection flags. This is often impractical in view of diverse sources of software available today.
There are various methods to ensure that a certain piece of content is played only on a single computer. These methods prevent the creation of useful copies. However, these methods may also pose difficulties to authorized users of the content. Authorized users may wish to play the content on different devices. This is especially true for users that are traveling and thus often need to use more than one computer or computing device.
A variety of portable storage devices are available to consumers. These include older devices, such as floppy disks and zip-disks, and newer generation portable storage devices that do not require an additional device for performing read/write operations such as a floppy drive, or a zip drive. Instead they communicate with a host computer by way of a standard interface (such as an USB port) and perform the read/write operations autonomously, upon instructions received from the host computer. These devices usually include flash memory and an on board controller for performing various read/write operations. An example of such a device is the THUMBDRIVE SMART device manufactured by Trek 2000 International Ltd of Singapore.
Usually, portable memory devices are designed and formatted to allow commonly used operating systems to freely access them. Thus, an operating systems running on a host computer to which a portable device is attached is able to access the portable device, and in turn allow a user of the host computer to view, copy and change the contents of the portable device.
Some of these devices incorporate some security features. However these security features are geared to controlling total access, and not to providing copy protection. For example, the THUMBDRIVE SECURE portable device provides password protection for data stored on it. However, if a user has the correct password, the user may gain full access to the contents of the portable device, including the ability to copy its contents.
There are some portable devices designed to securely store and play content. These include the IPOD offered by Apple Computer, Inc. and the RIO NITRUS offered by Rio Audio. These devices are much more complex than the portable storage devices described above. They include electronics, which decode stored data and convert it into sensory data (usually sound). For this reason, these devices are expensive in relation to the portable storage devices.
What is needed is method and system to store content so that the content is portable and easily viewable on a variety of different computers and computing devices, while also providing copy-protection for the stored content. The invention addresses these and other needs.